


Synchronised Drowning

by Riona



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Gen, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 09:59:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15883761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riona/pseuds/Riona
Summary: Lisbon develops psychic powers. Jane's mind isn't a good place to be.





	Synchronised Drowning

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sort of companion piece to [_Fighting the Tide_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15600165); I couldn't decide whether I wanted to write about Jane being psychic or Lisbon being psychic, so in the end I wrote both!

“Good work, Lisbon,” Jane says, grinning broadly. “You’re learning.”

Lisbon walks with her arms wrapped tightly across her abdomen; she feels a little unwell. “Learning what, exactly?”

“You’re learning how to read people,” Jane says. “You’ve been working with me all these years; _something_ was going to rub off on you.”

Is this what Jane does? These revelations from nowhere, hearing things the suspect isn’t saying as if they’d been spoken out loud? For something he insists so strongly isn’t related to any kind of psychic power, it sure feels a lot like being psychic. Lisbon doesn’t like this at all.

“Maybe one day you won’t need me,” Jane says.

“Yeah,” Lisbon says. “And you’ll stick around to be a pain in my ass anyway.”

“Well, of course,” Jane says, still smiling. Lisbon feels a rush of warm affection as she looks at him and sees him looking back at her, but somehow it feels strange, it feels unfamiliar, it feels—

It feels like _Jane_. There’s something indefinably Janeish about it, like she’s somehow experiencing Jane’s emotions through her own body.

This is so weird. This is _so_ weird. Lisbon isn’t sure she can cope with it, if these really _are_ Jane’s emotions she’s feeling.

She’s going to have to cope with it. She needs to hold this team together, regardless of the situation. Even if the situation is completely ridiculous and impossible. They deal with ridiculous, impossible situations every day. They work with Jane, after all.

She’s probably imagining things, anyway.

But what if she’s not?

-

“You called in sick,” Jane says.

“I know,” Lisbon says. Trying to block the doorway with her body, as casually as possible, to keep Jane from inviting himself in.

Not casually enough. He’s noticed.

“Headache,” Jane says.

Lisbon nods. “That’s right.”

“You always have a headache. You never call in sick. What’s going on?”

His thoughts are hovering between them, concerned, suspicious. She tries not to look directly at them.

She just...

She can’t deal with this. Hearing what people are thinking. It’s such an invasion of privacy. And it’s _uncomfortable_ , feeling what people think about her, no matter what it is: her team’s respect, victims’ families thinking she’s too hard-edged to be comforting, local PDs thinking she’s full of herself, terrified culprits thinking she knows too much, Jane’s suffocating fondness. And it all keeps getting louder, more overwhelming, harder to ignore.

She can’t stop working, either. Half a day out of the office and it’s already driving her crazy. She just needed to take a break from people for a little while, take a moment to breathe, figure this out.

Jane takes a step toward her. Lisbon takes a step back. The closer anyone gets to her, the more intense it is.

Jane pauses. Tilts his head slightly. She can hear him trying to read her.

She flushes. She’s the one who can _read minds_ here; how can _she_ be feeling exposed?

Because it’s Jane, of course. When this started happening, she thought he might have the same thing. She’s heard enough of his mind, now, to know that he really is just perceptive. But he’s _very_ perceptive.

“I can help with your headache, you know,” he says.

“Like you’ve ever made a headache _better_ ,” Lisbon says.

“I mean it. Just trust me.”

She listens for the thought behind it; she can’t help it. He really thinks he can help. But there’s something pressing and dark behind it, she’s been feeling it every time she’s near him, and she takes another step back.

“Are you afraid of me, Lisbon?”

“Just go back to the office. I just need to lie down. I’ll be fine.”

“Are you afraid of someone else? Is someone threatening you?”

“Please just go.”

He raises his hands like she’s pointing a gun at him. “Okay. I’m going.”

-

Van Pelt brightens as Lisbon walks through the door, then frowns in concern. “You okay, boss?”

The clamour of thoughts is so loud it’s dizzying. Lisbon can see herself through Van Pelt’s eyes, pale, a little sweaty, a little unsteady on her feet. She was really hoping she’d be able to conceal it.

“You should go back home if you’re still not well,” Van Pelt says. “We’ll be fine here.”

Lisbon doesn’t look at Jane, but she can feel him like storm clouds on the couch behind her.

“I have an announcement to make,” she says.

_I’m getting fired,_ Van Pelt thinks, instantly, as Rigsby and Cho look up from their desks. Is she really so insecure in her position? Lisbon needs to let her know she’s doing a great job.

“Everyone’s jobs are fine,” Lisbon says. “I just...” She pauses. “This is going to sound nuts.”

“We work with Jane,” Rigsby says. “We’re used to nuts.”

“I think I might be psychic,” Lisbon says.

Rigsby laughs. They all think it’s a joke. Of course they do; what else could it be?

“I know this is hard to believe,” Lisbon says. “But I’m serious. Either I’m losing my mind, or I can hear all your thoughts.”

The wordless incredulity from Jane hits her like a blow to the back of the head. She doesn’t turn around.

“I’m telling you this because I don’t think it’s right for me to keep it from you,” she says, pouring everything into keeping her voice steady. “If you want to test me on this, feel free to come and talk to me privately in my office.”

-

Jane’s into her office half a second after she is, closing the door behind him.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

The darkness has come with him. A huge wave, poised and looming over both of them, never breaking. She’s trying so hard to hold it at bay.

“There’s no such thing as psychic powers,” he says. “I thought you knew that.”

“So did I.”

“When did this start?”

_Don’t answer that,_ he’s thinking. It’s sharp and clear and focused, it cuts through all the background noise and all her efforts not to listen, like he’s thinking it directly at her. _Answer with a number. Fourteen thousand and fifty-six._

“Fourteen thousand and fifty-six,” she says.

He’s staring at her like he expects her to kill him. _Uncross your arms. Blink twice. Scratch your wrist._

She does. She’s hoping he doesn’t go too far, if he’s testing her through actions.

_Touch my face,_ he thinks, and then, _No, something else, not so close,_ and then, _No, do it. Touch my face._

She edges closer. There’s something like panic filling the room, and she doesn’t know whether it’s hers or his. She wants to run.

_She’s going to do it,_ he’s thinking. _That’s not something she’d do on her own. She doesn’t have the skills to manipulate me into asking for it. It’s real. It can’t be real. It’s real._

Anything she could do feels awkward. But she reaches out and touches her fingers to his cheek.

The wave comes crashing down the moment she makes contact. She’s overwhelmed by his thoughts, and she can feel what he feels, she knows he can _feel_ them flooding into her.

“Jane,” she says, and, “Jane,” and, “My God—”

It’s so _alien_ , the inside of his mind. She’d thought she had at least started to understand how Jane thought, after all these years of working together. Now, though, experiencing this... she doubts that even he completely understands himself. She doesn’t have a chance.

He doesn’t want her to see his memories of his family, she can feel it, because they’re private and they’re his and because he knows it will hurt her, but of course in wanting to hide those thoughts he brings them to the front of his mind and the guilt hits her so hard she physically doubles over.

Jane catches her by the arm and she tries to focus on the feel of his hands instead of his mind, tries to make her breathing loud enough in her head to drown out his thoughts.

The moment she’s halfway steady again, Jane lets go of her and walks away, lies down on her couch. She has to bite her tongue to keep herself from asking him to stay by her side, even though his proximity is the problem.

“How do you live with it?” she asks, when she feels capable of speaking. Her mouth feels dry.

Jane won’t look at her. “It’s mostly unconscious biological processes.”

“I’m being serious, Jane.”

“Oh, are we being _serious_ now?” He swings his legs off the couch, sits up, fixes her with a very hard stare. “Stay out of my head, Lisbon.”

“I can’t exactly _help_ it—”

“What’s in there is for nobody but me.” His gaze doesn’t waver, but she catches a few flickers of regret and reluctance in his mind. “I care about you very much, Lisbon, and I care about this job, but if you can’t turn this off I can’t be near you.”

Lisbon stares at him. “You’d leave?”

“I don’t see what other options I have.”

Jane can’t lose this job. It’s something Lisbon has known since long before this thing happened to her head; being able to hear his thoughts only confirms it. He can’t walk away from the CBI. It would kill him.

“You can’t,” she says.

“What, my job security is so good I can’t _quit_?”

“I mean – where would you go?”

To Red John, he’s thinking, one way or another. “Somewhere.”

-

Jane goes home early. It’s rare enough for him to go home at all.

He isn’t at work the next day.

-

She’s been hoping it’ll blow over some point, like she just caught some kind of psychic cold, like she’ll wake up normal in a few days and be able to call Jane back to work. But a week passes, two. Three. It’s stopped getting worse, and she’s improving at picking individual thoughts out of the din, but it isn’t going away.

She misses Jane. The whole team misses Jane. A few people in the building are thinking approvingly of how much more peaceful it is without Jane around, and Lisbon has to admit that it’s crossed her mind occasionally, but she needs him back; they all do.

Not just to solve cases. She can solve cases like lightning, now; all she needs to do is get within range of the culprit, hear the potential evidence they’re worrying about, track that evidence down. Still, though, in cases where the culprit’s covered their tracks well, she could use Jane’s skill for extracting confessions. And...

Well, it’s not the same without him.

But he won’t want to come back. Not if she can see into his mind.

-

Jane opens his front door quickly after she knocks, too quickly. She can feel his desperation for something to bring him back even before he’s opened it. He’s been trapped on his own, in the house where it happened, with nothing but his thoughts. She knows those thoughts too well herself, now.

He misses her; he misses the CBI. She can feel the ache of it when he looks at her.

He’s waiting for her to speak.

“It’s stopped,” she says.

_She’s lying._ No doubt, no hesitation. “What’s stopped?”

Why ask if he already knows? “The mindreading thing.”

_She’s lying. She’s only here in person so she can hear if I believe it._ “When?”

“A day or two ago. I mean, it’s been fading for a while, but I can’t hear anything any more.”

_You’re lying, Lisbon._

Lisbon keeps her expression carefully blank. “So do you think you might come back to work?”

An image flashes across her mind, suddenly, from Jane; it’s Van Pelt and Rigsby – and her – and Cho – and it’s _obscene_ —

Lisbon takes half a step back, her heart a wild animal in her ribcage.

_Definite reaction. I knew she was lying._

Why would he choose _that_ way to test her, of all things?

She won’t ask. It would be admitting that he’s right.

“You’re sure it’s gone?” Jane asks, all innocence.

_I know you’re lying, Lisbon. You know I know. If you stick to this story, we’re making an agreement to keep lying to each other._

Lisbon meets his look steadily. “I’m sure.”

“Well,” Jane says, after a moment, “I don’t have any reason to stay away, do I?”

-

She tells the team not to mention the psychic thing in front of him. Whatever needs to be done to maintain the illusion.

Van Pelt gives Jane a hug to welcome him back. It makes Lisbon a little envious. Not in a romantic sense, just... Jane’s always been so physical with the team, and now he won’t touch Lisbon, he’s maintaining a careful distance from her. She knows why; neither of them wants a repeat of that scene in her office. But it’s not the same.

-

When Jane thinks of the future, his mind flies like an arrow to the death of Red John. It’s a fantasy so recurrent and lingering and detailed it feels almost sexual. Different methods, but always intimate, never at a distance. Knives, chains, bare hands. Alone together. In the street, in front of passers-by. In front of Lisbon, and that particular scenario twists up her insides even more than the others.

But he never thinks of anything beyond it.

It’s starting to worry her.

She can’t tell him the specific reason she’s thinking about it; it’ll punch through the paper-thin lie that’s letting him keep working with them. But she can ask.

She leaves it for when they’re the last two in the office. They usually are, in the evenings.

“What are you going to do after we kill Red John?” she asks.

“ _We?_ ” Jane echoes, raising his eyebrows. “I’m touched that you want to help, Lisbon, but it’ll just be me and him. It’s personal. I’m sure you understand.”

“ _Catch_ ,” Lisbon corrects herself, feeling herself flush. Jane’s so perfectly sure of how this ends, in his mind, that it’s hard for her to remember killing Red John isn’t actually the plan. “After we _catch_ Red John.”

“I’ll go to prison, I suppose,” Jane says. “Or I’ll die. One or the other.”

If she didn’t have this direct insight into his head, she’d consider him a suicide risk, she’d be taking action right now to get him psychological help. But she’s not seeing any actual intent to end his own life. It’s more like a part of him believes he’s just naturally going to die at the moment Red John does, just stop existing, a puppet with its strings cut.

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t do either of those things,” Lisbon says.

Jane shrugs. “Well, maybe I’ll get away with it. Escape to another country. Somewhere beautiful, near the ocean. I’ll write.”

“We’d miss you,” Lisbon says. “Maybe we could just arrest him. No fleeing-the-country needed.”

“I’ll miss you as well,” Jane says, and she can hear how much he means that in his mind. “But I’m going to kill Red John.”

And he means that as well. It’s not even _I have to_. It’s _I’m going to_. It’s something he’s falling towards, unstoppably, inevitably.

Asking him not to kill Red John is like asking him not to breathe. It’s not a promise he can make, not without destroying himself.

“Don’t ask me to watch,” Lisbon says, quietly.

He sits up a little straighter on the couch. She can feel his realisation: she knows, she’s seen him thinking about her watching. And another realisation underneath that: she isn’t going to stop him.

“Never crossed my mind,” he says.

He stands up. She’s listening hard for any sign he’s going to consider their bargain broken, decide she’s made it too obvious that she can still hear his thoughts, leave them again.

He’s been avoiding any physical contact with her, and she’s not expecting it when he takes both her wrists, kisses her gently on the forehead.

She’s had more time to get used to this... this power, this illness, but the rush of his mind into hers still makes her gasp. The guilt and the obsession and the intense love, for his family, for her, for the team, for the idea of binding Red John to a bed and flaying him alive from head to foot.

“It means a lot that you understand,” he whispers.

She doesn’t know whether she’s herself or Jane. For now, she just tries to keep breathing.


End file.
